Archive for the ‘personal’ Category

Architecture of the stadium

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

People are often surprised to hear I’m a devoted football fan and Cardiff City supporter. Perhaps it doesn’t gel well with people’s perceptions of me (whatever those may be); however, I find football gives me an exciting break from daily concerns, and a chance to be part of the tribal culture inherent within us all. It’s a way to feel friendship with total strangers, an outlet for anger, joy and happiness, and an opportunity to mix with a wider cross-section of people than my limited horizons otherwise offer.

New Cardiff City stadium I also have a huge love for the stadiums and they remain one of the reasons I prefer to follow Cardiff at away games.

Stadium architecture has a clear effect on the physical presence of the club and atmosphere at games. The psychological effects on fans, referees and players are well-documented, but home advantage is also believed to give a genuine physical edge, hypothesised to be caused by testosterone increases in players. This effect is especially strong in defenders and goalkeepers, for whom the battle is particularly territorial.

Stadiums must also have logistics and facilities for up to 80,000 visitors (around the population of Shrewsbury), hundreds of police, stewards and officials, media and players. The range of requirements is pretty astonishing.

Clubs are known by the reputation of their grounds and the atmosphere they inspire. Some teams are known for poor support and quiet games (the “prawn sandwich” brigade). Cardiff, on the other hand, have a reputation as a very intimidating club. There are many reasons for this: passionate fans, unfortunate hooliganism, and the constant battle to be noticed against Wales’ supposed national sport of rugby. However, the stadium plays a huge part too.

Ninian Park is a classic ‘old style’ stadium, well beyond its useful life yet still possessing the hallmarks of bygone eras: terracing, woeful facilities, and some intangible ‘character’. High among Cardiff fans’ many concerns for the future is the worry that atmosphere and indeed a piece of the club’s identity will be lost as we move into our new stadium (at top) in May.

On my travels with Cardiff I’ve been to some dismal grounds, and loved them all (a foggy January week night in Mansfield where you couldn’t even see the other end of the pitch comes to mind). Below, Watford’s stadium: ugly and an easy target for ridicule, but possessing far more character than many other grounds I’ve visited.

And then there’s always the rare occasion when your team performs and suddenly you find yourselves part of something huge:

This is my best shot from last year’s FA Cup Final, which Cardiff pretty much fluked our way into. Wembley is of course enormous, and again the atmosphere is shaped by the architecture. Expensive facilities and location make for expensive tickets. This (and the sponsorship derived from TV coverage) means money spare for banners, flags and other paraphenalia. Huge crowds make for huge expectations, high ceremony and lengthy big build-ups, but they also make co-ordinating singing impossible. Many Cardiff fans said they didn’t get the same sense of atmosphere as at a traditional away game, since the noisiest fans were spread across the ground rather than, as is common, concentrated in a group.

The nosebleed-inducing height also changes one’s experience of the match. From here you can see the sweep of the game, like a general, but not the blood and sweat of the touchline.

This post is clearly an excuse for me to indulge a slight stadium fetish; however, I do think they provide great examples for how our identities, attitudes and actions can be shaped by the built environment. A branding exercise writ large in brick, if you will.

Posted in design, personal, psychology | 2 Comments »

Coping with a mainstream Twitter

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

January was the month that Twitter lurched towards the British mainstream. Stats show an astronomical rise in site and search traffic, and the rich and famous are now falling over themselves to connect with their fawning public.

Hitwise stats for Twitter in January

One may ask why this tipping point has happened first in the UK, rather than the States or elsewhere. One possible explanation is that a small number of influential celebrity types have hastened this outcome, and it’d be easy to fall into a daft sociocultural analysis of Britain the country and Britain the network. Stephen Fry as the powerful Gladwellian connector, uniting the geeks and the unwashed, previously so suspicious of each other!

My money’s on random chance. The initial conditions were set, after which chaos theory is the dominant force (yes, perhaps I have been listening to Jeremy too much).

The practical upshot is plenty of new users, including several of my real-life friends. They’re perhaps still on the early adopter side of mainstream but they’re not the type to, for instance, write blog posts about why people are joining Twitter. While it’s great to have them on Twitter, I have my own selfish concern: will I be able to cope?

I’ve previously mentioned that I have an approximate following threshold of 250. My workload and lifestyle enforce that personal limit, and I can’t realistically keep up to date with more people. So if my less geeky friends continue to join, whom do I drop? The model’s different from Facebook, where I can simply accumulate “friends” (a virtual notch on the bedpost) and then largely ignore them. So do I drop existing Twitterers, many whom I’ve never met but still give me a wealth of inspiration and knowledge, or friends whom I miss and am always eager to hear from? Ambient intimacy or friendship?

It’s a quandary. I’ve been trying to convince friends to join Twitter for a long time and it would be an irony if, once they join, I admit I don’t want to follow them. Yet I’m already operating a one-in-one-out policy, and something will have to give. My likely approach will be to take a much more relaxed and liberal approach to unfollowing people. Just as I’ll go and talk to various people at a party, so my attention will shift around a bit online. It’s either that or I face a cacophony in which I can hear no one.

However, I’m aware that people have very different attitudes to being unfollowed, so I’ll treat this post as a prophylactic excuse. Seriously, it’s not you, it’s me.

Posted in personal, psychology, web | 3 Comments »

Conference choices

Sunday, January 18th, 2009

The start of the year brings the inevitable choices about Spring conferences. My original plan was to join the rest of the Clearlefters at SxSW, but I’ve decided it’s not for me. Reports I’ve heard make it sound rather like an enforced Freshers’ Week, where the partying is the raison d’être. Much as I do enjoy a party, you can have too much of a good thing. I felt stifled and overtired after dConstruct and BarCampBrighton, and I’d hate for that to happen during a week in Austin. So while I do love the web scene, I need my space too, and I’d also prefer to improve my professional skills than my already finely-honed beer skills.

So I’ve decided that this is the year I finally go to the IA Summit, Memphis TN, 20-22 March. It’s been on my list for years but I’ve never been fortunate enough to have an employer willing to permit me an overseas conference. Fortunately overseas conferences are very much part of the Clearleft way of life, and even just by looking at the names of attendees I know I’ll learn a great deal.

I’ve also been extremely parsimonious with my holiday time, so will probably linger Stateside for a week or so afterwards. The question is whether to head West (to San Francisco) or Northeast (to Chicago, Montreal, New York perhaps). So far I’m leaning towards the latter, although if anyone has any suggestions I’d be glad to hear them.

As for SxSW, there’s been talk of a counter-event taking place in Cardiff (South by South Wales), or possibly just one or two timezone-shifted drinking sessions in Brighton. Works for me.

Posted in personal, user experience | 1 Comment »

On 2008

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

It is of course customary at this time of year to review the twelve months past in a lengthy and uninteresting blog post. So I’ll condense it to a paragraph.

In 2008, I watched Cardiff City in a Cup Final, saw My Bloody Valentine live, met some marvellous people, was published in A List Apart, moved to a new city I love, and worked with some of the best in my field.

More of the same, please.

Posted in personal | No Comments »

Getting real about Agile design

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008

Thrilled to see my article Getting real about Agile design published on A List Apart today. Hopefully it’ll stimulate some lively discussion about a subject that I feel has often been treated rather shallowly. If you have any thoughts on the article I’d love to hear them in the “Join the discussion” section (but please go easy on my pun/neologism “user-scented design”, of which I’m embarrassingly proud).

If you find the topic of particular interest, you may like to know that I’m running a half-day workshop on Agile user-centred design at UX London next year. Alternatively, if you find me of particular interest (I suppose someone must), you’re very welcome to say hello on Twitter or grab my RSS feed.

Many thanks to the ALA team, with whom it’s been a pleasure to work, Clearleft of course, and Johanna for the research help.

Posted in design, personal, user experience | 1 Comment »

The C word

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

I know, I know, it’s still five weeks away, but these things take a lot of forethought. My travel arrangements to The Lizard are already made, but the main plans revolve around the parties. As well as the Clearleft bash (mercifully an afternoon thing), I’m going to the BBC Backstage party to catch up with the London folks, then heading to the Open Rights Group party the following week.

Booze aside, this will be my fourth year of opting out of the commerce of Christmas. I find the traditional Christmas whirlpool of money towards the retailers rather distasteful, given the millions of people who actually need it. As a result I’ll be donating rather than spending money on presents, and once I again I ask others to do so on my behalf instead of buying me anything. ORG will be one of my recipients (along with The Wikimedia Foundation and Asthma UK); as it happens they’ve just released their annual report (pdf), which is definitely worth a read.

The fun bit is that I’m committed this year to making little presents for people to make up the gap. Any ideas?

Posted in personal | 3 Comments »

My name in print

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

The latest issue of .net magazine is out today, and it’s an important one for me because I wrote the cover article “The ultimate ways to test your site”. It’s my first printed article, and obviously I’m proud to do my bit to spread the word about user experience. It’s also pretty darn hefty and took a fair few hours, so I’m doubly happy with the way it turned out.

It’s basically a rundown of guerrilla usability testing for normal people, covering planning, recruitment, how to run a test, choosing the right software and analysing the results. If you’re an experienced usability pro you might find it a little basic, but for anyone new to the field or who wants to get more involved in design and usability, hopefully it should hit the spot.

Thanks to the .net team for the opportunity, and my fellow Clearlefters for the support.

Posted in personal, user experience | 1 Comment »

Reflection

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

During the radio silence of the last few weeks, I’ve turned my attention to other tasks. The largest has been to write two substantial UX articles, which should be published shortly. More details will follow. I’ve also written a few songs, recorded one – Pilcrow (demo, mp3), kickstarted an intensive exercise program and slowly coaxed my brain back into a productive state.

The time off has also given me space to rediscover my passion for my field, and to think about it in quite some depth. I’ve therefore decided to blog far more regularly for this month at least – a post a day, perhaps – to explore these thoughts and crystallise them. If this sounds interesting, now would be a good time to subscribe to my RSS feed.

There’s also something about Autumn that makes this seem doubly appropriate. It could perhaps just be nostalgia, but the precipitous change in atmosphere and climate cause me to take stock of the year and express what I still want from it, while there’s time.